Are You Celebrating International Men's Day?

Article here. Excerpt:

'If you are at all like me, your first reaction upon learning that this is a reality is that the holiday must be a joke, a smug retort to International Women’s Day, which is observed on March 8, mostly in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia, although it actually began as a socialist celebration in New York. (If that was not your first response, congratulations on your light heart.) But it isn’t. The day doesn’t exist to celebrate machismo, or to ask why American women are whining about pay when women in other countries are worse off (sound argument), or to complain that women are confusing and/or overly sensitive (hey!).

On November 19 (if you’re reading this on its day of publication, that’s today), 60 countries—including the United States, apparently—observe International Men’s Day. What is it? Why does it exist? And, in a world where, to quote Manuel Contreras-Urbina, who runs the Global Women’s Institute at the George Washington University, “There is not one society that is not patriarchal” (disclaimer:there are six), do we need an International Men’s Day?

Maybe, maybe not. We do, however, need to talk about men’s issues.

But first, to briefly discuss the day: In 1999, Dr. Jerome Teelucksingh of Trinidad and Tobago began International Men’s Day to improve gender relations and celebrate and support positive male role models. The day only reached a wider audience, however, in 2007, when Australia’s Warwick Marsh, co-founder of the Fatherhood Foundation, and India’s Uma Challa, founder and president of India’s Men’s Welfare Association, came together to promote the day.

“Right now,” Challa said in an interview, “society is very anti-male … Boys are not given any kind of support. Boys are forced out of school. They aren't given any encouragement … there's no effort to keep them in school. Health—we have [this] national family health and welfare service. The only way men are mentioned is how they're going to be contributing. But not to their health and safety. Men are not considered part of the family, men and boys.” Challa also noted, however, that she believes feminism is antithetical to her own society’s values; her aim is not gender equality, as she she sees men and women “not as equal, but as equally powerful, complementing.”'